By Greg Blake
Heidelberg United Alexander thundered into the inaugural Australian Championship semi final stage last Saturday afternoon, with a victory as emphatic as any this season. The Warriors were exhilarating. That shouldn’t surprise, but it was a welcome return to superlative all the same. As ruthlessly as serial killers, the Bergers chased down and toyed with South Australia’s North Eastern MetroStars, on the road smashing them 6-1. It was carnage and the margin might have been doubled.
Semi Final : Online Tickets
South Melbourne v Heidelberg United
That game concluded the third remarkable final in succession to start last weekend. Rumour has it that Football Australia execs were on the blower to their World Wrestling Entertainment counterparts in the US earlier in the week. “Listen, it’s the quarter finals of our new competition this weekend and we need to generate some interest. We need ideas. Huge ones. We’re talking ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin up against the Ministry of Darkness-type huge”, was the plea from Sydney. “We need drama and upsets. And a thrashing. We need heroes. Maybe a health crisis. Attention grabbing new ideas”.
The scripts from the WWE boys arrived last Friday morning. It made for a spectacularly memorable weekend for the fledgling competition. By late Friday night 23 year-old goalkeeper, James Hilton, is a new cult hero. On life support against Wollongong last weekend, Marconi steadied to take Wests Apia to penalties. Hilton saved three and scored the winner for the Stallions in a thriller. On Saturday afternoon Avondale, virtually indestructible at home, fell 3-1 to visiting Moreton City Excelsior, in a massive quarter final upset.
Semi Final : Online Tickets
South Melbourne v Heidelberg United
Saturday’s game at Heidelberg provided the thrashing. One that would likely cause opposition coaches with teams still alive in the Championship to lose a bit of sleep. And the day started with the health scare, with Alexander coach, John Anasatasiadis, heading off in an ambulance to hospital for some tests. JA hadn’t felt well and Football Director, Nick Deligiannis thought he looked “a bit crook”. Anastasiadis took the precautionary measure and missed the MetroStars game, with assistant Savvas Patikkas calling the shots.
At the time of writing – last Saturday night – Anastasiadis had been declared good to head home. Also, at the same time the fourth of the quarter finals had yet to be decided. Alexander will take on the winner of that game, between South Melbourne and table-topping NSW minor premiers, NWS Spirit.
Semi Final : Online Tickets
South Melbourne v Heidelberg United
Savvas Patikkas’s coaching record copped a fair, old polish on Saturday’s performance. The Warriors looked a million bucks again. They were crisp and clear, quick, decisive and deadly. The confidence in each other was back and fairly brimming throughout the playing group. And the ease and rapidity of Alexander’s gear shift to turn a couple of weeks of relatively laborious hard-work back into throbbing Rolls Royce precision was frightening. To record the equal best win of the season – against MetroStars – in the team’s 46th competitive game in ten months is astounding.
Olympic Village and its new-found and very welcome vocal support group – and their accompanying drum – give the place an upbeat party feel. And I got lucky on Saturday, standing with footballing royalty to watch the game. All blokes I’ve known along the journey and all of them at one point wore the yellow and black in senior football, mostly in the national league of the day. One of them was Phil Stubbins, who played and/or captained in excess of 200 games with Alexander in the 1980’s and 90’s.
Semi Final : Online Tickets
South Melbourne v Heidelberg United
Stubbins alleviated difficulties analysing a game against a team you’re not familiar with. After nearly two decades living and coaching in Adelaide, Stubbins – who flew in to Melbourne on Saturday morning before heading out to Olympic Village – was hugely enthusiastic about a number of MetroStars players, some of whom he’d worked with in their school years. It is impossible to describe how compelling the spectacle of the 2025 Heidelberg United team had been at times this year.
I reckoned at least six or seven of the Alexander team would cruise at A League level. Two minutes into the game the MetroStars keeper shows terrific vision to spot and then hit sprinting Thomas Visser 60 yards downfield, Visser firing home truly to put the South Australians ahead. I shut up. Down a goal for the fourth time in as many games, Alexander’s cut-throat match specialists fired back, not once, but twice, inside the opening ten minutes. The comeback became a rout.
And Stubbins, I think, was genuinely gob-smacked by just how slick the team was on Saturday. As the slaughter played out Phil kept turning toward me, shaking his head and offering the likes of “bloody hell, they’re good”, “the way they play, unbelievable” or “they are cutting them to ribbons”. By half time this cluster of former champions were quizzing about “who’s he”? or “why is he not playing A League”?
Very few of Saturday’s starting team didn’t get a mention, and, trust me on this, current day players earning unsolicited praise from former champions is about as tough as sucking sap from a tree. For the record, I reckoned Fletcher Fulton and Ryan Lethlean were stand-outs against MetroStars. But appreciating the Warriors being exceptional through the eyes of former club champions was something else again.
Semi Final : Online Tickets
South Melbourne v Heidelberg United
Of Saturday’s six quarter final goals, Bul Juach nailed a couple, giving him 31 for the 2025 season and within one goal of Bobby Despotovski’s 1996 single season scoring record of 32 goals in all games in top flight Victorian and national competition. Smooth-as-treacle southpaw, Marcus Humbert also claimed a classy double. Like Juach, he grabbed goals on either side of half time. Anthony Lesiotis grabbed a single late in the game. He also hit the woodwork and missed one he might otherwise have taken. Humbert also fluffed his lines once or twice.
Jay McGowan has a touch of Maverick in ‘Top Gun’ about him. A little impulsive, but also daring. McGowan scored a beauty off his left to level Saturday’s game before the MetroStars had time to enjoy their early break. He flew about and was critical in a couple of later goals or near goals. Believing his eye was in, McGowan also launched a couple of not-too-shabby but unsuccessful pot shots. For no particular reason, he’s just fun to watch.
Heidelberg’s six goals on the weekend takes them to 109 in all games in 2025. That total is the third best in club history behind 113 and 111 in 1960 (Provisional League) and 1961 Metropolitan , respectively. It is (another!) all time club best in Victorian senior competition and above. It also means the current day Bergers leapfrog Avondale of this season, Hakoah of 1954 and Wilhelmina in 1958 and now sit second on an all-time, single-season, all games in senior competition goalscoring record. In 1959 Wilhelmina scored 114 times, the highest total confirmed in around 120 years of Victorian competition.
Semi Final : Online Tickets
South Melbourne v Heidelberg United
And the final, fancy new idea introduced for the quarter finals last weekend was the challenge ruling, a kind of cheap-ass VAR. Oh goody. This’ll work well. There were a couple of challenges on Saturday and, no, they didn’t particularly intrude on or effect the flow of the game. But the concept sounds similar to the briefly trialled but hugely unsuccessful ‘decide your own jail sentence’ program in the legal system.
The referee, fourth official – and video technician – arbitrate challenges made to the decisions made by their very own officiating team for that game. How could that possibly go wrong!
Anyway, at least one and hopefully two more games and another success still to come in season 2025. One day you’ll wish you’d watched this marvellous once-in-a-lifetime Alexander outfit more than you may have, so get to the games to support and thanks the boys before it’s all done and dusted.
Warrior Nation!
Semi Final : Online Tickets
South Melbourne v Heidelberg United
